Someone recently sent me this story feeling confused, and I wanted to clarify something, because I think the language "self-published" can mean a lot of different things to different people.

For some people, self-published means "I wrote this on my website, and now I want to share it on Medium." (That's totally allowed!)

For other folks, self-published means "I wrote this on Medium, and now I want to submit it to a Medium publication."

The confusion is that while it's totally ok to syndicate something you've written on your off-Medium website onto your Medium page, it's NOT ok to duplicate a post you wrote on Medium, to create a second version of the same story to submit to a publication.

In my conversations with folks, I'm finding it really helpful NOT to use the term "self-published" to describe "something you wrote on Medium that you didn't submit to a publication." Folks get really tangled up between how it's ok to syndicate something you self-published on, say, their Wordpress blog onto Medium, vs duplicating content they wrote on Medium into a second article to submit to a publication.

There may be an opportunity to clear up some confusion in your post, as well!